IMO, it is the deliberate inclusion and distortion of Eastern philosophy that marks out the terrain of "new age", hence I'd start it with Theosophy. It's the pretense that it is "deep" when all I see is "deep fog". lol. As you say, is horrible to read, deliberately foggy, whereas original texts are much clearer. The last 40 years or so have seen many very good translations of, say, Tibetan Buddhist texts - mainly because it is the first time we have truly bilingual individuals.
As a counter-example contemporary with Blavatsky, Gurdjieff can also be impenetrable, but I find his crazy-wisdom more intelligible than Blavatsky's pseudo-serious works. His "4th way" bears some similarities with Dzogchen, which exists as a network of individuals without a formal "religious" structure.
I absolutely agree! Never really looked at it that way. Oh, and the deep fog was probably as a result of all the hashish the Madame smoked before writing! 🤣
The irony is that I was studying Ancient Egypt at the time, and so was fooled by the title Isis Unveiled. It seems that Eastern wisdom and philosophy has been exploited for decades upon decades, both by Theosophy and secret societies.
I tried to study Gurdjieff years ago, but I suppose I'm that kind of middle-way (for lack of a better term) type of person who does not like to go too far into any field. In other words, too much science and you lose me; likewise, too much philosophy or esotericism, and you lose me.
But it is said that the origins of the Enneagram (another Typology system I dipped into) goes back to Gurdjieff. The problem is that those who surrounded Gurdjieff (a Dynamic Assertive) were not Adaptive Assertives or Adaptive Supportives, so the Typology of 9 Personalities revolves more around different aspects of the other Life Energies. Plus, a group of psychiatrists, way back, went to an Enneagram presentation and hijacked the model when they realized that some of the personalities were based on certain psychological profiles. Anyway, getting too far off topic! 😎